Jimmy, a business-like young man, enters a room where a man, the accountant for a shadowy drug lord, is shackled. Over the next week, Jimmy systematically tortures the accountant, demanding information about missing funds. The accountant denies any knowledge. In flashbacks to six months before, we see Jimmy's joining a group of the drug lord's enforcers, surviving brutal hazing, getting his first assignment, and keeping his cool. We also learn that Jimmy has another identity, friends in high places, and a girlfriend unhappy about both his work and his changing personality. Can Jimmy hold on to his humanity as he carries out increasingly nightmarish orders?

FBI agent Kevin Cole goes undercover as Jimmy Vaughn, an organized crime enforcer. When he's ordered to undertake the week-long torture of accountant Archie Gold, Kevin begins to question his role in government service, where often he must hurt or end another human being's life just to make a bust.